What an unfortunate mess this turned out to be.

Spiker has a halfway decent background story for a horror film.  Adam and Elizabeth are in love.  But someone else loves Elizabeth too, and ends up knocking her up, so she has to marry him.  She’s so depressed by this fact (which begs the question as to why she slept with the guy in the first place) that she kills herself by throwing herself in front of a train.  Adam goes crazy and starts murdering people with railroad spikes in order to get revenge on the world or whatever.

Adam’s been taken into custody by the police, who are still trying to find the bodies all the people he murdered.  He unsurprisingly escapes, and finds his way back to Elizabeth’s old house, where, that same night, a group of teenagers are having a seance/makeout party.  Convenient, huh?

Anyway, from the first couple of minutes of this film, I was convinced it was going to be a stinker – during Adam’s escape, he shoots one of the policeman and it’s quite obvious that they shot the wall behind the cop with red paintballs, then put CG blood on his shirt.  It’s quite bad.  Actually, almost all of the blood is CG in those first couple of minutes.  Still, I fought through it for you, dear reader!

After the initial scene, the flick actually starts to get interesting – mixing a ghost story with a slasher film, the kids are relatively likeable, the acting isn’t too horrible, and the kills start to get halfway decent, and no more CGI!  And the end if surprisingly dark for a slasher flick.  I actually was kind of impressed with it.

Still, the problems with the film are too numerous to overlook, and they drag down the film to pretty much an unsaveable point.  First, the director, Frank Zagarino, casts himself in the title role of the Spiker.  Not a bad casting choice, mind you.  Zagarino is tall, imposing, and has the feel of a Michael Myers-type slasher.  Problem is, he wears a t-shirt, jeans, and a duster.  Sure, the bad guys an albino, but…hardly slasher material.  He’s just some tall guy chasing kids around who doesn’t talk or smile.  I just think he could’ve used some kind of mask.  Right now he just looks like some bounty hunter.  Eh…it’s bad.

Secondly, the lead character supposedly is the spitting image of Elizabeth, Adam’s lover.  But it’s never explained why.  Nor is it explained why she has a psychic connection with the killer, or why she’s the only one who sees ghosts in the house, which happens before the seance.  Plus, what kind of high school kids actually go to houses to perform seances?  There are 5 preppy kids and one goth chick that no one likes…so why do they hang out with her?

Finally, what makes the Spiker…I dunno…superhuman?  His girlfriend died.  I hardly think that’s enough reason to kill hundreds of people with railroad spikes – but, in addition to that, he seems to be impervious to bullets and super strong.  Not sure where those skills came from.

I like that someone tried to create a fresh slasher character in a new slasher film, and tried to infuse some originality.  Still, unlike the enjoyable Midnight Movie, the budget constraints hurt this film (CG blood always bugs me) and the story just left too many open holes, even for a silly slasher flick.

For the die-hard slasher film fan only.

Paul’s Awesomeness Score – 5 out of 10

Purchase Spiker from Amazon.com!